Training, from the mundane to the sublime, bolsters companies and workers in an uncertain world.
Training represents the perfect symbiotic relationship between employer and employee. Organizations get to immerse their workforce in company culture, prevent costly job turnover and allow staff to grow where they are planted. On the employee side, workers expect and demand training. They see it as a way to wield control over their careers: a gamified, choose-your-own-adventure path to advancement. In the manufacturing world, where qualified workers are in short supply, training has become paramount to keeping employees engaged and the factory running.
{pullquote}Every employee, whether they’ve been here for one day or 30 years, will have an active development plan. {/pullquote}
Undeniably, training costs money, and there’s no guarantee that workers won’t take their newfound skills to a competitor. Still, it remains a must-have for any company, especially in this post-recession economy. Our world is changing fast, with technologies and work styles constantly morphing. Relying on an employee’s static university degree, no matter how prestigious, just won’t cut it. “Providing training is like providing air-conditioning,” says Rachel Ulrich, chief administration officer, at Pacific Continental Bank. “It’s an office necessity. If you don’t have it, you won’t have a forward-thinking employee base.”
Some training is government mandated. For instance, managers at Vancouver, Washington-based Burgerville restaurants must know first aid while all 331 employees at Pacific Continental have to be up to speed on the latest banking rules and regulations. At Pacific Continental, training like this is delivered through short, web-based videos viewed on the job. Keeping the videos short, “between five and 45 minutes” according to Ulrich, lets employees absorb the information without feeling overwhelmed. Continuous use after the fact keeps the new information alive in their heads.
For an hourly wage Burgerville employee, short training sessions work like stepping stones to a higher-paying management position. Lessons include the technical, like how to operate every piece of restaurant equipment, to the intangible, like how to use improvisation skills to provide better customer service. Even if an hourly worker isn’t interested in advancing to management, there’s an expectation that she will grow in her position. “Our president’s philosophy is that every employee, whether they’ve been here for one day or 30 years, will have an active development plan,” reports Beth Brewer, Burgerville’s chief of transformational learning and development.
That development plan, something Burgerville calls its “secret sauce,” is a way to pass down core company values, create community leaders and stay true to its mission. The privately held company is tight-lipped about practices, but Brewer notes her employer’s investment in this work, which includes a daylong exploration of one’s strengths and purpose, is, “significant and unprecedented in the restaurant industry.” (What is Brewer’s strength and purpose? “I ignite human potential,” she says.)
Learning skills like how to resolve conflicts or listen actively is also key to Pacific Continental’s culture. Ulrich stresses that this kind of training can come from a trusted outside source but has to be “actionable and applicable, to daily tasks. “We have to follow up internally to reinforce lessons.” This check-in includes asking questions like how a newly-trained staff member’s communication style has been impacted.
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One question you wouldn’t hear at a follow-up: “How many accounts did you open today?” says Ulrich. “We don’t do hard sales or have quotas, and our training aligns with that.” Instead a manager might ask for a concrete example of how a lesson was applied.
The manufacturing world is interested in developing soft skills, too. “I’ve been doing this for 27 years and have been hearing the call for soft skills for all 27 of them,” says Ken Madden, vice president of sales and marketing for industrial staffing company Madden Industrial Craftsmen. Madden defines soft skills as “displaying commitment to the team by showing up ready to work and calling if you’re going to be absent.”
Along with these basics, manufacturing is facing a hard-skill shortage. Experienced workers continue to age into retirement, and union halls, once the schoolhouse for on- and-off-the job training, are fading as well. Even the state’s 17 community colleges can’t meet the volume of need, according to Madden.
This shift is forcing a change in the manufacturing mind-set. “In the last two months, I’ve had 10 clients approach me on training and apprenticeships,” says Madden. While heartened that so many companies are onboard so quickly with the idea, Madden knows that this new paradigm requires different thinking.
“Most manufacturing companies work in a bubble,” he says. “They want someone with three years’ experience, so they keep stealing the same employees from each other without bringing in new blood.”
To solve this, Madden proposes that employers unite and train as a group. “We need to go back to the union model of apprenticeships,” he says. “Ten to 20 employers could come together and set up a system and benchmarks.”
Industry cooperation isn’t the only change needed. Chris Scherer, president of the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership (OMEP), suggests that manufacturers need to encourage a learning culture. “In a learning culture, people are allowed to safely make mistakes without risking their job,” he explains. By this he means workers are encouraged to try, fail at and eventually master new skills, all under the watchful eye of a well-trained trainer. “That’s an extensive shift for companies used to a surplus of skilled workers,” he says.
The manufacturing sector is getting a training boost this year in the form of state money; a $35 million investment in Career and Technical Education and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education (CTE/STEM) passed in the most recent session. Still, they are playing catch up and will be for years.
It’s a position companies like Burgerville are hoping to avoid. “There are a lot of disruptive factors in the world: climate change, economic cycles and the way people work,” says Brewer. “We want people to contribute responsively to these disruptions instead of being affected by them.”
In other words, Burgerville and Pacific Continental, are teaching resilience — a way to ride the waves in an uncertain world. Yes, training costs money and takes time, and there’s always the risk that a home-grown employee will one day work for a competitor. But a chance to guide employees to success while steeping them in corporate culture should be grabbed. Hopefully, for Oregon manufacturers, it’s not a lesson too late.
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